How India’s 1st Educational Crowdfunding Platform Transformed the Lives of Over 350 Students

Edudharma is a community initiative by a Coimbatore-based volunteer team. While the team first stepped into community-based service to fight ‘No Food Waste’ and resolve hunger needs, it is now crossing another milestone by exploring the education sector.

Education is the greatest gift you can give anyone. In a country like ours where rural societies are still marred by the social issues of poverty, malnutrition, illiteracy and caste-based discrimination, this very access to affordable and good quality education is a far cry.

But some good samaritans in Coimbatore are helping hundreds of meritorious and deserving underprivileged students, take one step closer to their dreams.

Edudharma is a community initiative by a Coimbatore-based volunteer team. While the team first stepped into community-based service to fight ‘No Food Waste’ and resolve hunger needs, it is now crossing another milestone by exploring the education sector.

Edudharma just like the name says, the duty of education, is supporting deserving students financially through a crowdfunding platform.

The team first identifies a deserving candidate and creates an online account on their crowdfunding website. The idea is to maintain 100% transparency. Deemed India’s first education crowdfunding platform, Edudharma prides itself on its unique feature that gives donors access to the students’ achievements, current and past academic records, so the donors are convinced, their money is reaching the right beneficiary.

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They also help the students themselves to track the donation they receive in their name. Once the funding campaign hits the required amount, the money is then deposited to the respective account.

While Edudharma through its earlier initiative No Food Waste has been successfully feeding over 3 lakh people, the two-year-old organisation has transformed the lives of over 350 students through its educational platform. They have also partnered with over 110 colleges across India and have a 76.8% success rate.

One of their beneficiaries is India’s No 1 Para-Badminton player and world No 27 Abbas Sugil. This Coimbatore-based athlete has one dream – to represent India at the 2020 Paralympics.But to stay in the league, he has to sustain himself within 30 ranks and play many more international matches. But the money is tight.

Speaking to EdexLive, he shares that he came across Edudharma a year ago. The platform has been helping him financially to participate in international tournaments ever since.

“As per the Paralympics rules, a player should hold a consistent rank for which the player should have participated in international tournaments every year. This year, my rank came down from 21 to 27 because I couldn’t participate in the international matches because I didn’t have enough money to travel,” he says.

Despite having won over 35 medals in different tournaments, he is still short of 14 more international tournaments to qualify for the Paralympics this year.

Edudharma started a sports campaign to raise 18 lakh for him, which still hasn’t reached its target. They are looking for more national and global donors to help Sugil, attain his dream. Another health campaign has been kickstarted for his electric elbow prosthesis.

Edudharma’s Android and iOS mobile application were recently launched by Amitabh Kant, CEO of NITI Aayog, Government of India.

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